People are buzzing about a new media company called 'Axios' — here's everything we know about it

Politico cofounder Jim VandeHei has finally
unveiled the details of his new media venture, Axios, which
will launch fully in January and cover the "collision
between tech and areas such as bureaucracy, health care, energy,
and the transportation infrastructure."

But the big question about Axios
isn't whether the topic area is relevant — it is! — but whether
VandeHei will be able to carve out a business model at a
time when layoffs are rocking both new and old
media.

Axios' mission statement,
according to Vanity Fair, certainly suggests it is going to
be different: "Media is broken—and too often a scam."
Particularly, VandeHei thinks he can thread the needle
between the legacy behemoths getting slammed by declines in print
advertising, and the nimble upstarts who are seeing some forms of
internet advertising race to zero.

In doing this, it seems like
VandeHei will employ some of the tricks that worked well at
Politico, while adding a few new wrinkles.

Here are a few big points Axios
is going to hit:

Axios is going to write short. What
VandeHei doesn't want is for Axios staffers to write for
other journalists, which he sees as producing pieces that are
simply too long and boring for regular readers. He
characterized this as the biggest problem in the media right
now. “People don’t want the
pieces we’re writing,”
he told Recode. “They’re too damn long.”

Axios is going to live on a bunch of different
platforms. VandeHei is on the "distributed" media
train, meaning that he wants Axios, in some capacity, to live
wherever you are — Snapchat, Facebook, and so on.
VandeHei is especially bullish on Snapchat's Discover
section.

VandeHei wants to sell $10,000-plus premium Axios
subscriptions. At
Recode's Code Media conference, VandeHei said he
couldn't see being "super intrigued with a subscription
less than $10,000.” He sees subscriptions coming two to three
years into the venture, however.

Axios has to be freemium. While VandeHei
thinks subscriptions will be a necessary part of the business,
some work has to be free to build up, and continue to promote,
the brand name. His goal is to have 50% of revenue come from
subscriptions, and 50% from advertising.

People have to want to read Axios. Axios means
"worthy" in Greek, and VandeHei has already snagged some
well-respected journalists people listen to, like Fortune's Dan
Primack and Politco's Mike Allen. But everyone has to be on
board with the "smart
brevity" mandate.